Download once using unique ID

[sperks]

I've been asked by a friend to see if I can find a solution for controlling downloads of a song from their site. They're looking to allow people who have purchased a copy of their CD to download an additional track using a unique code thats printed on the CD cover. They want to limit the number of downloads to one per ID to prevent people from just sending the URL around. I usually hunt around the net for things like this and hope to find an open source solution, but I've had no luck on this occasion so was wondering if someone could either point me in the right direction or give me some tips in setting this up on my own. I'm working on apache with all the benefits offered by cpanel.

Something similar is mentioned in this post [webmasterworld.com...] but I'm not going to delve in to the flash on the CD itself.

Thanks

[eelixduppy]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, sperks!

The solution really depends on how/where you are storing the unique id's.

For example, if you have the id's in a database and a new id is added when a product is sent, then it could be as simple as checking the database for the id, if it exists delete the entry and allow a download (or something similarly as easy).

But then again, this may not be that case; it may be a little more in depth with different technologies.

If you can fill in the blanks that would be great. :)